


Chain Reaction (Or, Character N's Soliloquy)

by Insomnia_Productions



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fushimi Niki - Freeform, Soliloquy, from k-project, he's an asshole and then I got an assignment about bullying and, i won't lie, introspective, it's an asshole father reflecting on the chain reaction caused by his abuse to is son, sort of, this is heavily based on, this was born, with stage directions and everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:18:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7497306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insomnia_Productions/pseuds/Insomnia_Productions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then there’s my son. Like a live-in board game. How convenient. When my wife was around, she never let me play with him. Said he was an angel, something to be protected, not a guinea pig for my cruel little tricks. Poor thing. She never did understand my art. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(It all starts with one, black seed, no larger than a thimble. And then it grows into the barest tree, stark and empty and strong, destined to last for generations.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chain Reaction (Or, Character N's Soliloquy)

_ The stage is completely empty, lit by a dull white light. The light shines on the whole stage, but it is brighter in the center, leaving the far sides of the stage slightly shadowed. It looks like an empty, grey room; all focus is on Character N. _

 

_ Character N is standing at stage left, half in the shadows. He is wearing black jeans and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved black shirt. His hands are in his pockets. He’s leaning back slightly, looking to the other side of the stage. He walks to the center, slouching, and then straightens and faces the audience.  _

 

_ He paces slowly while talking, and he speaks in a light, mildly amused tone, sort of drawling… a leisurely drawl that might make you picture him leaning back in a chair with his feet on the table and a lazy smirk on his face. _

 

**Character N**              My son is a little shit. 

 

Three times already I’ve been pulled out of work this month to meet with his teachers and the parents of some sobbing child, and it’s only the sixteenth. The same old, you know. Teasing. Manipulating. Bullying.  _ [Laughs.]  _ This is the part where I lament on my parenting struggles, how it’s been so difficult since the loss of my wife when he was three, how I’ve been trying and trying, but— _ oh _ ! Where did I go wrong?  _ [He says this part dramatically, voice slightly rising in pitch and volume, bringing a hand to his heart and looking off into the distance; it’s over-the-top.] _

 

_ [Pause. During this pause he drops his hands and sobers very suddenly.]  _

 

_ [Looking over the heads of the audience.]  _ I wonder. Was it the carefully wrapped boxes, covered in decorative paper with snowmen and reindeer prancing about, opening up to dusty lumps of coal? Was it the perfectly solved thousand-piece puzzle scattered across the floor, the broken fragments a three-hour endeavour, that finally pushed him over the edge? Or perhaps it was the aquarium with three koi fish, floating idly by in the tank across the room from his bed. They weren’t so idle when a family of red-bellied piranhas were introduced to the ecosystem, I can tell you that. It was quite amusing, actually; the game went on for a good three minutes. By the end of it, those koi were nothing more than pool toys to be tossed around by the piranhas. He cried about it, afterwards, but at the time he couldn’t look away, eyes wide and dry as bone.

 

_ [Turns his head to look at the audience, pauses, and then smirks, tilting his head back slightly.] _

 

Come now, don’t look at me like that.  _ [Lifts arms up a bit.] _ Everyone has their own ways of having fun, especially since I’ve lost my wife. Some men turn to golf or football, others to alcohol or gambling. Me, I prefer games different to those involving kits and teams, or those played with shaking hands and colorful images of coins and cherries popping up on the screen with each tug of the lever. I prefer games of the mind, of the psyche, games of which I am completely in control. It’s amusing to watch the people around me squirm, searching for a response to something no one can respond to. 

 

Sometimes at work I get bored of the idle prattle and slip little gems into the conversation, just to see how my colleagues will react. Once, when the office idiot came bouncing up to me with that vapid grin of his, telling me not to look so glum  _ [he says this in a higher pitch, mocking the person]  _ and to put a smile on that broody face  _ [again, mocking tone] _ , I told him that today was the anniversary of my wife’s death. _ [Laughs briefly.] _ Poor bloke went paler than a wraith, started sputtering out I’m so sorry’s and I didn’t know’s  _ [again, mocking tone].  _ Quite the spectacle, but just entertaining enough to keep me going for the day. 

 

_ [Brief pause.] _

 

And then there’s my son. Like a live-in board game. How convenient. [Glances at the audience, and then away.] When my wife was around, she never let me play with him. Said he was an angel, something to be protected, not a guinea pig for my  cruel little tricks _. [Sighs.] _ Poor thing. She never did understand my art. No matter. She died by the time he was old enough to have fun with, anyway. 

 

_ [Smiles.]  _

 

When I got that first call, a few months ago, I was shocked. My meek little  angel , sent to the headmaster’s office for flushing some other meek little angel’s head down the loo. Who’d have thought it? Certainly not me. 

 

And yet, the incidents only increased. One day it was shoving another kid into a locker, and a week later, it was stealing the same kid’s lunch. 

 

And then it wasn’t. 

 

_ [Smiles widely.] _

 

He learnt, you see, learnt very quickly how to break the system. A chip off the old block, as they say—and he took the chip that taught him how to do things so that no one could pin you down for it, no one could definitively say that you  did something. He learnt the  rules. 

 

No hitting, no stealing, no flushing people’s heads down the toilet. Physical attacks leave evidence. 

 

Don’t call them names, don’t leave them notes, don’t try to humiliate them. Don’t do anything they could look at and conclusively call an offense. 

 

The secret lies in whispers, in casual comments or thoughtful murmurs. 

 

“My, your hair has been looking awfully dry recently. You should visit a salon.”

 

“Oh, dear, is  that what you’re going to work with? It’s our final project, you know. You want it to be good, and… well, you’re not exactly the  best  at claywork.” 

 

“Ouch. Those scabs on your arms look terrible. I had those, once You should just scratch them. Even if it hurts, even if it bleeds, doesn’t it feel so  good ?” 

 

He knew, of course, that she had been to the salon only the day before, that he had been thinking of a career in claywork, that scratching those scabs would only cause more agony. 

 

But who can fault a boy for trying to help? 

 

I still get called to the office every few weeks, summoned again and again by teachers who just  know something is wrong. But what can they do? A passing comment is hardly  bullying . 

 

_ [Pauses, tone becomes thoughtful and speculative] _

 

Do you know? I was passing by the coast yesterday, and I saw that boy, the one who’d wanted to work with clay. He was carrying a painting under one arm—his art project. A little girl was with him—his sister, I think. She’d built the most beautiful little sandcastle, decorated with shells and seaweed. In the setting sun, it looked almost red, like clay. 

 

That boy, he stared at her castle for a long time, then down at his own painting. 

 

And then he got up, walked over to his sister’s masterpiece, and smashed it to the ground. 

 

I saw his face as she cried. He was smiling. The same  exact look my son had on his face the first time I was called to his school.

 

_ [Turns to look directly at the audience, giving a lazy smirk.] _

 

A chain reaction, do you think? And me, right at the top. 

 

_ [His tone switches from lazy to downright malicious, sort of vicious.] _

 

I’m so  proud of me. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hahahahahah fuck you niki-person 
> 
> I submitted this for a drama assignment and my drama teacher side-eyed me for like a week


End file.
